Philadelphia Community Access Coalition
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MR. HERMAN: Well, I don't have any solid information.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: You have to introduce yourself, sir, to the record.

MR. HERMAN: But I have --

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Sir, for purposes of the record, you first have to state who you are.

MR. HERMAN: Edward Herman. I'm affiliated with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and I write on a number of subjects, including the media. I've taught on the media in the Annenberg School of Communications too.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Very good. Go ahead, sir.

MR. HERMAN: One obvious factor will be that the competitive media organizations will not like new competition, and especially the cable companies that would possibly have to fund this kind of public access, provide facilities. And I believe in the long run, they wouldn't like this because it would preempt channels that they might some day want to use for their own commercial purposes.

So there's a serious conflict of interest in which the cable companies definitely wouldn't want like it and probably even the broadcast companies wouldn't like it because it's an alternative thing to look at.

COUNCILMAN ORTIZ: Well, they're not here covering these hearings, as you can see.

MS. RIEDEL: Well the other thing is, I understand there are five public-only access channels that right now, the cable company is in possession of. And of course, they're not leaving them blank; they're putting some programming on them, I'm assuming.

Each one of those channels, by the way, has -- especially in a market like Philadelphia, has a value to the citizens of Philadelphia in rent of about $3 million per year. So just the fact that the cable company, or cable companies, as the case may be, are using those channels rent-free is a detriment to the people of Philadelphia.

But we were also told by the Mayor's office that the cable company has been putting money into escrow all of these years for capital expenditures and equipment so on and so forth and operating cost and so on. And so, obviously, there should be a decent sum of money to get the -- you know 15 years' worth of -- and hopefully it was a good-interest account, and with 15 years' worth, they should have a decent amount of money to get public access going, I would think.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Well, in the recent mayoral primary in Philadelphia, millions spent on TV media.

MS. RIEDEL: Right.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: And it would seem to me that the information we learned about the mayoral candidates and their position on subjects were far less than we would have learned if the information could have been given freely over public access channels.

(Applause.)

COUNCILMAN COHEN: And maybe it could end some of the corruption that people say is involved in this heavy campaign financing.

MS. RIEDEL: Councilman Cohen, you're so right. We had a public access channel in St. Paul, Minnesota, that interviewed 91 candidates for office -- I mean, everything from dog catcher to state senator. It was a young guy who put this whole thing together, and 91 candidates were either interviewed, they were able to make statements. And then they had like another 30 minutes of call-in by the citizens.

But you can imagine how rich that is in a campaign environment to be able to show that and have the people really get a better feel for who their candidates are? I think it's fabulous.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: All right, well, look, that ought to be a recurrent thing throughout here because to move this bill -- to move a bill that would really establish public access in Philadelphia is going to require continued support from the groups that are here today. Because whether we can identify them or not, obviously, the forces opposed to public access are very strong.

They've kept Philadelphians for 16 years from having public, 16 years access after the law was passed, and many promises were made during the time the City was considering granting permits to the various cable companies that wanted to operate in Philadelphia. And every one of those companies professed an enormous interest and support for the concept of public access.

Yet, it's never happened, we've not even been able to determine with any degree of accuracy whether fee payments for public access were made or were not made and what happened to them in the City of Philadelphia. I heard the statement made about how you were told that the cable companies had put aside money for capital expenditures.

All kinds of promises were made about making available the facilities and the equipment necessary for these public access channels to operate successfully. Yet we just have never been able to move the mayor to take the action that's necessary to create public access.

MS. CLAUSING: Councilman Cohen, I believe that some of those questions may be addressed in the next panel, but maybe we can continue with the testimonies so that we can get to the next panel. Some of those questions may be addressed then.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Okay, very good. Mr. Herman?

MR. HERMAN: I'm going to speak in a more general level. I have a very short paper called "Commercial Television Versus Democracy."

The media is supposed to contribute to democracy by informing the citizenry about public affairs, giving them regular in-depth analyses and sponsoring debates on issues important to a democratic communities, but the media don't like this so-called public sphere because advertisers don't like it. Advertisers want entertainment and non-controversial that will draw large audiences and not disturb the selling message.

The result is that the first law of evolution under a regime of commercial television is that the public service and the public sphere are steadily displaced by entertainment. This process takes place even as the broadcasters and cable companies make enormous profits because larger priorities are capitalized in the stock prices and the investors always want more.

So although TV companies may be making 100 percent profits on their tangible investment and 1,000 percent on their original stake, they still struggle for more and they continue to erode and marginalize the public sphere.

When the commercial broadcasters got their rights to use the public airwaves without charge back in the 1920s and in the Communication Act of 1934, they promised faithful devotion to public service. And in 1946, in its classic report called "The Public Service Responsibilities of Broadcast Licenses," the FCC declared public service to be "irreplaceable," and promised to compel broadcasters to provide that service if they wanted their licenses renewed.

But as advertising grew and public service fell, the FCC did nothing about it because broadcaster political power prevented this. So public service gradually eroded on the quiet. And the American's diet information of information and public affairs fell far below that provided in Europe by public service broadcasters.

With the coming of cable, it was hoped that the public sphere would be enhanced because of the proliferation channels and the spill-over from overcrowded entertainment. But it did not work out that way. Cable has offered vast quantities of the same fare as the broadcasters, as it too has bowed to bottom-line pressures in the determining imperative of advertiser demands.

Broadcasters were given a free ride -- no charge for the use of public airwaves, even as they failed to provide this public service. The cable companies also are being given monopolistic rights and massive public infrastructure subsidies to provide a service with enormous educational and public spirit potential. And the record is clear, very clear, that they likewise will marginalize education and the public sphere unless they are forced to do otherwise by citizens and responsible government pressure and effective contracting.

That pressure and well-constructed and properly-enforced contracts should be used to compel the cable companies to provide generous channel space, revenue, and public facilities for public access, government and educational channels. These can have feeders from schools and government offices and can thereby provide important educational opportunities and ways of allowing citizens to know what governments are doing. Media centers equipped with studios and equipment checkout can provide the opportunities for authentic citizens television.

In many cities, participation by the citizenry in both cultural and public affairs programming involves thousands of people and genuine participation rather than top-down provisions of programs.

It is a notorious fact that Americans are not well informed on public affairs, have extremely volatile political opinions and increasingly don't vote. I would suggest that one important reason for this is the erosion of the public sphere on commercial television, where, as media analyst Neil Postman (ph.) argues, we are threatening to "amuse ours to see death."

In a country so depoliticized and with an increasingly cynical public, public access offers an opportunity for enlargement of the shrunken public sphere with an active public that should be strongly supported by democratic citizens and leaders.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Thank you very much.

Just one more question to the young woman to your left. When you met with the Deputy Mayor, did they show you films that they said -- because they did it to City Council one morning.

MS. RIEDEL: Yeah, yeah. I know and I was shocked.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: The reason I'm asking you is --

MS. RIEDEL: No, they knew me those films because they it wouldn't work with me so --

COUNCILMAN COHEN: You don't have the tapes with you? You don't have tapes of the --

MS. RIEDEL: Of what?

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Of whatever it was the mayor --

MS. RIEDEL: No. They didn't show me. I can just imagine, though. In fact, actually on our third panel, we have the Executive Director of Manhattan Neighborhood Network, who wants to talk about that kind of thing -- his experience in Atlanta, in Minneapolis, in New York, with that minuscule amount of programming.

I will say this: we produce one million hours of locally-originated programming every year in this country. At any time, I have maybe ten hours of programming around the country that is in contention. Ten hours. I will put public access's record up against Fox and the networks and, in fact, the Learning Channel any day of the week.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Very good, very good.

(Applause.)

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Mr. Herman?

MR. HERMAN: And I would wager that she could put up, based on what one could see on commercial television, something for the Mayor's office that would cause him to remove any contracts for cable television. That would be extremely easy, that kind of selective fixing of a tape. I mean, for cable, it could be crushing for commercial cable.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Well, that's a thought. I think, and Councilman Rizzo has suggested it, it makes a lot of sense to me that we're going to try to get copies of the tape that was shown to us and exhibit them to you and get your comments on them.

MS. RIEDEL: They called my office, you know, but the whole point is that it's a public park. There are times in a public park where someone does run naked through the park. And you arrest that person who ran naked through the park; you do not shut down the public park. And that's the point.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Very ably put.

(Applause.)

MS. RIEDEL: And we have laws in place that handle all of this. And in fact, Jim Horwood, our legal counsel for Alliance, will go over what some of the current law is, but it's really not an issue. It's less than 1 percent of all programming, less than 1 percent, so it's not an issue for us.

COUNCILMAN COHEN: Thank you, thank you.

I want to ask the next member of the panel to proceed.

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